The Childcare Bill unveiled yesterday requires every childminder and nursery to teach the new curriculum to children "from birth" until they start school aged five.
All three-year-olds in childcare will learn rudimentary maths, language and literacy, the government said.
But Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, condemned the "bizarre" proposal.
She said:"We are now in danger of taking away children's childhood when they leave the maternity ward.
"From the minute you are born and your parents go back to work, as the government has encouraged them to do, you are going to be ruled by the Department for Education.
"It is absolute madness."
The Professional Association of Nursery Nurses (PANN) said the new curriculum, which aims to integrate childcare and education, must not be too rigid.
Tricia Pritchard, from PANN, said: "We hope this will be age-appropriate and flexible as young children develop at different rates. Children of the same age have different abilities."
The government drew up the new curriculum for toddlers, arguing that research showed earlier education helped children develop faster socially and intellectually.
Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said: "We want to establish a coherent framework that defines progression for young children from nought to five.
"We are not talking about sitting very young children in chairs and making them learn numbers and letters where that is inappropriate."
The minister said the curriculum, to be known as the Early Years Foundation Stage, will have the same compulsory legal force as the National Curriculum for schools.
The Bill also gives councils a new duty to make sure all working parents have access to childcare facilities.
But the Local Government Association said council tax or childcare bills may have to rise to implement the plan.
It said £200m would need to be invested in the next two years over and above existing resources.
LGA education official Alison King said: "To meet the government's ambitions means investing £200 million over existing resources in the next two years." Tweet
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The Department of Education seems to want to control absolutely everything down to the minutii.
"We want to establish a coherent framework that defines progression for young children from nought to five".
Yeah - most admirable....yet you preside over falling standards in secondary schools, the dumbing-down of university education to the point where employees no longer regard a degree as substansive proof of a reasonable education.
The education system needs to be overhauled and returned to the days of O and A level standards - albeit coupled with coursework.
Then maybe you can preach on standards to tots.
Nothing wrong with pre-schoolers being able to read and write!
I taught myself. I could read and write when I was 3 years old, just going into nursery. It hasn't done me any harm.
And did nobody else get placed in different streams in school, according to their abilities? top set for English, 2nd set for Maths, etc.???
Perhaps this will weedle out the kids who end up being unable to read simple books up to the age of 11, which is what has been happening recently!
More emphasis on learning is harmless! Life is not about watching Bob the Builder and playing in the sand pit!
Beverly Hughes appears to have learned little from the consequences of her idiocy displayed in her previous ministerial job at the Home Office which got her sacked.
Perhaps like her old friend Blunkett, she will share his fate twice.
it doesnt surprise me in the least that dear beverly's plans are being panned by the professionals. as usual she has put her foot in it.
i assume from the article that neither organisation was consulted on this issue, as there would be no words of condemnation.
so after 6 months of being holed up in a committee room this is the best she can offer for her efforts, then god help us.
keep claiming your B#160k a year beverly, but lets see some really positive action for OUR money.
This is another typical, not thought out, government joke. This seems to me that the government is giving a helping hand to some teenage/young mothers, and i say some as this has been true of a report, who aren't entirely sure of how to develop their child from birth, mainly due to the age of the mother in question. Now you may think i'm being nasty, i'm not, i just think that my tax should be better put to use by bettering the current secondary school curriculum.
If the State wants "good citizens" it is important to get to them at an early age and make sure they think the "right thoughts".
George "1984" Orwell eat your heart out!